The Supreme Court has heard only five cases directly related to the Second Amendment.
They are U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876), Presser v. Illinois (1886), Miller v.
Texas (1894), U.S. v. Miller (1939), and Lewis v. U.S. (1980). One the
Supreme Court refused to hear, Burton v. Sills (1968), is also mentioned.

U.S. v. Cruikshank

involved members of the Ku Klux Klan depriving black victims of
their basic rights such as freedom of assembly and to bear arms. The court decided that
neither the First nor Second Amendments applied to the states, but were limitations on
Congress. Thus the federal government had no power to correct these violations, rather the
citizens had to rely on the police power of the states for their protection from private
individuals.

This case is often misunderstood or quoted out of context by claiming Cruikshank
stated the Second Amendment does not grant a right to keep and bear arms. However, the
court also said this about the First Amendment. The court explained that these rights
weren't granted or created by the Constitution, they existed prior to the Constitution.

Presser v. Illinois

ruled that the states had the right to strictly regulate
private military groups and associations. It also reaffirmed the Cruikshank decision that
the Second Amendment acts as a limitation upon the federal government and not the states.
However Presser also stated that setting the Second Amendment aside, the states could not
prohibit the "people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United
States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security..."

Of the Second Amendment cases, U.S. v. Miller is the most mis-cited
(intentionally and otherwise) by the lower courts, not to mention the news media,
textbooks and encyclopedias. Some courts have acknowledged the true holdings of Miller,
but then simply disregarded them. Though referenced again below, please don't forget to
read how some courts deliberately
mis-cite Miller.

U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876)

Cruikshank

was the first Second Amendment case to reach the Supreme Court. Cruikshank
is occasionally misconstrued as deciding the Second Amendment does not confer an
individual right to keep and bear arms.

Among the counts against Cruikshank et. al. were charges to deprive two blacks their
First and Second Amendment rights. Regarding the First Amendment charges the court stated:

The right of the people peaceably to assemble for lawful purposes existed long before
the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In fact, it is, and always has
been, one of the attributes of citizenship under a free government... It is found wherever
civilization exists. It was not, therefore, a right granted to the people by the
Constitution. The government of the United States when established found it in existence,
with the obligation on the part of the States to afford it protection...

The first amendment to the Constitution prohibits Congress from abridging "the
right of the people to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of
grievances." This, like the other amendments proposed and adopted at the same time,
was not intended to limit the powers of the State governments in respect to their own
citizens, but to operate upon the National government alone...

...For their protection in its enjoyment, therefore, the people must look to the
States. The power for that purpose was originally placed there, and it has never been
surrendered to the United States.

Similarly regarding the Second Amendment violations the court wrote:

The second and tenth counts are equally defective. The right there specified is that of
"bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the
Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its
existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has
been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of
the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national
government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their
fellow-citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called..."internal
police"

In brief, following precedent, the court stated the Bill of Rights only applied as a
limitation on the "National government." Individuals could not file charges
against other citizens in federal court regarding violations of their constitutional
rights. It was up to the states to protect the fundamental rights of its citizens when
their rights were abridged by other citizens.

Herman Presser was found guilty of parading a group of armed men without authorization
in the state of Illinois. The defendant had tried to claim this was unconstitutional and
violated his Second Amendment rights as well. The court ruled the states have the power to
control and regulate military bodies, including drilling and parading activities. Though
the court stated Second Amendment issues were not involved, it re-affirmed that it applied
as a limitation only on the national government. However the court then stated:

It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the
reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as of the States;
and, in view of this prerogative of the General Government, as well as of its general
powers, the States cannot, even laying the constitutional provision in question out of
view [the Second Amendment] prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to
deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security,
and disable the people from performing their duty to the General Government.

Thus the Presser court wrote that the right to keep and bear arms existed,
independently of the Second Amendment, for "all citizens capable of bearing
arms" and the states could not infringe upon this right.